


I'm Not Lost, I'm Wandering Your Way

by Asrael_Valtiri



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Attempted Sexual Assault, Disordered Eating, Established Relationship, Ginger Angst, Grief/Mourning, M/M, No White Savior Motif, Palpatine is a Creeper, Possession, Seriously Though Hux Fucks Ren's Dead Body, That's Not How The Force Works, The Fountain AU, Wakes & Funerals, corpse fucking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-10
Updated: 2019-12-19
Packaged: 2020-10-13 16:17:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20585396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asrael_Valtiri/pseuds/Asrael_Valtiri
Summary: Hux will go to the end of the universe to bring Ren back.**The grand marshal (of what, who knew, now that the First Order had been destroyed by the persistent, eternal luck of the Resistance) lay curled against the side of his supreme leader, his beloved; for what else was Ren, when Hux consistently found himself putting aside his own pride and ambition, simply to be at his side.Now Ren was gone.





	1. It's Not Over Yet

**Author's Note:**

> It starts off dark but I can't bear to leave Hux with a sad ending so it does get better! (But it gets worse first!) Please mind the tags!
> 
> I plowed through this in the last couple days to finish it before TROS. Who knows what will come next after TROS for everyone...

Blood red was the ground, the dirt, the metal around him, all he could see before his eyes. Seeping from the wound dealt him not by the girl, but by the traitor FN-2187. And the last things he felt from the two before they fled the crumbling remains of the Death Star were pity from her--and love for her from the traitor.

He clutched at his wound. This was not one he could staunch using the Force. All he could do was attempt to remain coherent enough to reach for help.

“What a disappointment,” the ragged old voice said. Imperial accent. He opened his eyes and could just make out the sneering, flickering form of the old dead emperor’s ghost before something obscured it, cutting quickly through it to fall beside him.

“Ren, Ren, hold on,” it said, and it became Hux. His Hux, leaning over him, with his two remaining knights. Hux turned to them. “Get help, get someone! Do something!”

One of them fled, but the other knelt beside Hux, placed a hand on his shoulder, said, “I think it is too late, Grand Marshal.”

Do not touch him, Ren thought at his knight, though at first he didn’t think his servant had heard. But then the knight quickly removed their hand.

“Ren, we’re getting you help, hold on, baby, hold on,” Hux whispered.

How strange to see those clear eyes blurred by tears. He thought Hux had been speaking in jest when he told Ren he loved him. Ren treated it as such, assuming his own pleasure at the words was due to the fact that he had finally--finally!--achieved dominance over his little general. And so to solidify Hux’s loyalty, he’d promoted him to Grand Marshal, as he should have been already.

Only now, with Death stalking ever closer, did he realize the truth: He loved Hux too.

He did not wish to leave Hux.

He raised a hand to Hux’s cheek, smearing the pale skin with blood, commingling with tears. Hux gently kissed his lips.

He whispered the words.

“What is it, Ren?” And Hux clutched Ren’s hand to his cheek.

“I love you too,” Ren murmured.

Hux’s eyes widened but then he felt Ren’s hand go limp in his own, and his soul broke into so many pieces as he wailed in grief.

**

Ren’s knights stood back from the grand marshal. Everyone else had fled, died, or been captured. They alone remained. They were neither of them well-versed in sympathy. It had been trained out of them years ago, when they’d joined their departed master on a shuttle to Snoke as children.

But they too ached at the hole ripped inside them.

Feeling the anguish of Hux made it worse.

The grand marshal (of what, who knew, now that the First Order had been destroyed by the persistent, eternal luck of the Resistance) lay curled against the side of his supreme leader, his beloved; for what else was Ren, when Hux consistently found himself putting aside his own pride and ambition, simply to be at his side.

Now Ren was gone.

Everything that had been Hux might as well have been dead too. He lay there he knew not how long, murmuring to Ren, stroking his lovely face. He might have gone mad at some point; he wasn’t sure.

Now, Ren had gone cold long ago. Hux felt as if he’d sucked up every last bit of Ren’s warmth he could; perhaps in doing so, he could have captured some of Ren’s soul from the Force. He could convince himself that his lips still tingled from that final kiss. That Ren had passed some of his essence to Hux, in that last moment. Or in Ren’s confession of love, Hux would find later that Ren existed inside of him, or he inside of Ren. Or anything, really, as long as Ren stayed here, with him.

“Interesting,” a cold voice said. One of the knights came to stand beside Hux as he curled further around Ren.

“Interesting,” the voice said again, more insistently. “The bastard of Brendol Hux loves the grandson of Anakin Skywalker so much, he’d be willing to die with him?”

Hux returned to reality at these words, after perhaps an eternity.

“Who in all karking hells do you think you are, Valance?” Hux snapped as he sat up, but still clutched Ren’s cold hand.

“Not Valance, to be certain.” And the knight pulled off his helm. Hux’s eyes widened. Though he’d learned their names, he’d never seen any of the knights without a mask. Now he knew why. This knight was clearly not human. Not that Hux cared, but that would have been unacceptable to High Command.

But Valance’s eyes were yellow. Even Ren’s had never gone yellow. Valance gave a wicked smile and crouched beside Hux, grasped his chin in a firm grip. Pulled him so close their lips practically touched.

“Quite fair, upon closer inspection,” the knight said with a queer laugh. It sounded hoarse and cruel, as if the laugh were seldom used, and never for mirth. It lashed Hux’s face with fetid air, and he coughed.

“Have you ever heard the tale of Darth Plagueis the Wise?” the knight asked.

The other knight gasped sharply.

“Grand Marshal, sir, come away, please,” she said.

“What is going on?” Hux asked.

Valance grabbed his arm and pulled Hux into his own arms.

“You wanted power, boy. I could give you power,” the knight said.

“What are you saying? Unhand me. Ren--”

“Is dead. Yes. But I could give you more power than he ever had. If you open yourself to me, child of the Empire.”

“Armitage!” the other knight shouted. She ran forward, but Valance swung an arm back and sent her flying across the chamber.

“We’re sinking. Make a choice, Armitage,” Valance said.

“I don’t care about power anymore. Unless you can give me back my Ren, Palpatine, you can go to bloody Sith Hell,” Hux snarled.

Valance’s eyes opened wide. “Clever boy, I can tell. But that’s precisely what I offer you.”

Hux’s eyes studied the knight’s face, his yellow eyes. Slid his gaze to the other knight as she stood. Turned to Ren.

He was willing to take a calculated risk here, for Ren. Wherever Ren would be, wherever the Force sent his disparate parts. If the tale of Plagueis Ren had told him long ago was real; if he could be with Ren again, even as peasants in the Outer Rim; if he could find a way to make Ren live and be happy--

He would make a deal with the devil.

He could deal with Palpatine later.

“Armitage, don’t,” the other knight begged.

“If he can give me Ren, Asher,” Hux tod her gently, “I will do anything.”

“He’s lying! He only wants--”

“A body, I know. But why me?”

“Because you have the authority I need and a stronger mind than these two,” Palpatine said.

Hux nodded.

“Do not think exorcising me is a possibility for you though, boy.”

“We’ll see. But I need your power first. I need access to the Force.”

“And you shall have it, boy. And I shall have my empire once more!”

Hux smiled. Apparently, the old emperor didn’t realize his empire had just been destroyed once again. But he’d know soon. And Hux would find a way to wrest Palpatine’s power from him, to steal it for himself.

Something inside of him burned as Valance pushed his lips to Hux’s. Hux felt his gorge rise, his body fight the invasion. His mind snapped and thrummed, his heart began to palpitate, and he wept.

Valance blinked, his eyes returning to their normal black color. Sweat sprung to his brow, and he collapsed.

“What just happened?” he whispered.

“You just gave me what I needed,” Hux replied, his eyes shifting from blue-green to Sith yellow. He stood and waved a hand.

“Bring Ren’s body with us,” he ordered. “But,” he added softly, “very carefully. He’s very precious.”


	2. When You Laugh, I'm Inside Your Mouth

Asher had gone.

After meditating rigorously for three days and nights, she announced to Hux that she had an idea that might help them.

He let her go. The less he knew about it, the better. He stayed on Endor with Valance as his guard. After they had fled the remains of the Death Star, the knights had found the wreckage of a stardestroyer. His heart ached. He hoped it wasn’t the Finalizer. He’d have liked his home, complete with the urn of Millie’s ashes, to live among the stars. Luckily, upon further inspection, Asher told him it was not his ship.

They had managed to pillage from it a working cryostasis chamber in which to put Ren’s body. Hux was certain he could rig it to a portable power source. The two knights scavenged what they could and then, miracle of miracles, they found a ground transport.

After days of searching, Valance returned to camp with news of a little hut in the forest. So the three lugged Ren in his chamber, looking like nothing so much as a slumbering prince in repose, and took up temporary residence in the hut, until Hux had a plan.

Or Palpatine had an order.

That was a week ago. Asher had clasped Hux’s hands in her own two days ago and told him she had to leave, but she promised to return. She had admonished Valance to keep his hands off the grand marshal. For his part, Hux had--strangely--absolute faith in Asher, Ren’s most loyal and competent follower. She had guarded their door many a sleep cycle when they’d been together. She was smart, tactful, discreet; Hux possessed no doubt she would keep her word, and that she would bring him useful information.

Now, he sat on the floor of the little hut. Perhaps, it had once been a quaint home. There was evidence that someone had made a decent life here; a bed high in the wall, as if the roots of the tree into which the home had been built had conveniently formed themselves for sleepers. They had cleaned it as best they could, and Hux got the bed, but the bedclothes had long since rotted away.

True to his word, Valance didn’t touch him, though Hux could tell he wanted to. Why, he could not fathom, when Valance had never seemed interested before.

No matter.

They sat in lotus position--or as close to it as Hux could, with his tense muscles--and Valance led him in a breathing exercise in an attempt, futile though it seemed thus far, to teach Hux meditation.

The stowaway emperor didn’t help.

“Be mindful of your breathing, sir,” Valance said quietly, calmly. “In through the nose, out through the mouth. Feel it come from the ground beneath you. Visualize it going through your body and out your mouth.”

Hux tried in vain and opened his eyes to find the knight staring at his open mouth. Valance swallowed loudly.

How Hux wished that Asher stayed instead.

“Try again,” the other man suggested.

Hux kept at it until his ass hurt, and then he stood and left to take a walk outside.

He walked around the side, where they had hidden Ren with the chamber’s portable generator. Through a small window in the top, he gazed at Ren’s face, willing him to open his eyes. He looked asleep. Hux’s eyes stung when Ren wouldn’t obey his desire and just wake up. He placed a longing hand to the window and made promises he fully intended to keep. And when he could stand it no more, loathe as he was to leave Ren, he meandered around the front dooryard of the little house.

He found a little plaque, fallen into the dust, and read the names Noa and Teek, and below those scrawled in some sort of paint, Cindel.

“Oh, how quaint,” the emperor said.

“Unless you have something useful to say, be quiet, old man,” Hux growled.

“I had hoped you’d be a bit more pliable. You’re stronger than I thought for someone without use of the Force.”

“Well, I’ve use of it now, don’t I, since you’re possessing me? After a fashion,” Hux said smugly, and immediately regretted it. He folded in half and moaned as agony ripped through his mind.

“Mind your tongue. As I become more used to this corporeal form, I shall become stronger and more able to exert power over your own body. Do not test me.”

Hux huffed. He brushed the sign off and wondered about the former occupants of the little house.

He could easily have lived here with Ren. Palpatine’s disdainful laugh echoed in his mind at the sentiment.

With another annoyed huff of breath, Hux carried the sign inside and sat on the ground again. Once again, Valance coached him. This time, as he focused on the sign and what he thought it might mean, his mind hushed the sniping emperor, as Hux mediated on Ren. Ren as family.

“Well, well, well, look at you, boy,” Palpatine said.

Hux opened his eyes just as the emperor attempted to touch him. He hopped away.

“No, not until I know how this all works,” Hux said.

“You’ll never know. No one knows.”

“But you know more than I do, old man.”

Palpatine’s sneer was the only thing visible under his hood.

Hux looked around at what he assumed was his mind. Or some mystical environment now connected to his mind because of Palpatine’s possession. Semi-possession.

He was not on Endor, that much was certain. The landscape surrounding him was dry and barren of anything but rocky cliffs and dirt, and there yawned a great chasm before him. Something tugged at his memory, from Ren.

He turned to ask, but the emperor was nowhere to be found. Instead, Ren stood smiling before him.

He very nearly reached out before stopping himself.

“That’s cruel, old man. You’re not endearing yourself to me at all. You should know that I’m predisposed to loathe old Imperials.”

The facade of Ren cracked with a cackle.

“You know I’m not that weak, old man,” Hux scoffed. “Sheev.”

The emperor glowered. “Do not call me by my given name. I am an emperor and a powerful Sith lord, boy.”

Thus far, Palpatine didn’t seem to be able to exert much power over Hux, but that might not remain the case. And they shared this space, perhaps Hux’s mind. Or his soul, if such a thing existed. Still, Hux remained cautious. He knew well the strength of Force users. But he also knew how to placate them and deflect their anger. Usually.

“So, what is this place, sire?” Hux asked politely.

This seemed to assuage Palpatine’s ire a bit. Feeling magnanimous, he waved a hand. “Korriban,” he said.

“The Sith homeworld?” Hux arched a brow.

“Home of our beliefs, our order, all of it.”

“Home of your appropriated beliefs,” Hux said with a shrug. Oh, he’d forgotten he shouldn’t bait the old man.

  
Palpatine snarled in response.

Hux ignored him and squinted.

In the distance, he saw a figure approaching the chasm. Though it faced away from him, he knew it was Asher. He gasped in shock and stumbled, falling past the emperor who reached for him greedily, opportunistically.

And he awakened on his back on the floor of the hut, Valance looming over him.

“Are you all right, sir?” he asked. His hand clutched at Hux’s arm; Hux shook him off.

“Yes, but I think I had my first vision,” He said. There was awe in his voice.

“What was it?” Valance asked, sitting back on his heels.

“I’m uncertain. I don’t want to say just yet, not until Asher returns.”

“She could be a while.”

“Indeed.”

Valance placed a hand on his shoulder. Hux looked at it and then at him, and frowned.

“You should eat. It’s been hours. I’ve found some food, sir.”

Hux looked out the window. Through the gaps in the tall trees, he could see the sky changing color, darkening; the gathering shadows made him nervous.

“I’m not hungry,” Hux said.

And frowned again.

Ren could no longer eat. He could no longer take meals with Hux. He could no longer laugh or talk or meditate or argue. Or kiss. Or do any of the things Hux could still do.

Hux wanted him back, to do all these things. To do everything. With him. And Hux needed his strength to fight Palpatine for the emperor’s power, to keep control of his own mind and body. To wield this new power. To save Ren. To bring him back to Hux, where he belonged.

Outside, Ren’s body awaited everything that made Ren to return to it.

And Ren was his home. Without Ren, there was only existence. His whole life before Ren was mere existence.

As a tear slid down his cheek, he said, “I am very hungry, actually.”

Valance smiled. He stood and held out a hand to help Hux up.

“Good. I’ve made quite a bit whilst you were under. Sir. Armitage.”

His thumb rubbed against Hux’s wrist, and Hux pulled away. His lips pressed into a thin, disapproving line, but he said, “Thank you, Valance,” as primly as he could.

Where in all Sith hells was this coming from? he wondered.

Valance grimaced. He muttered an apology and strode the two steps to the little stove. Taking two small bowls from a shelf nearby, he ladeled some sort of stew into each bowl and added some greens atop it. He carried each to the small table recently cleared of old gewgaws and rusted gadgets. Some of which Hux recognized. When he wasn’t meditating, he was fiddling with them to keep his mind off Ren.

Now, he sat down at the table, Valance folding himself into a small chair opposite the grand marshal, and the two tucked into their food.

Hux had to concede that Valance wasn’t a bad cook, considering the ingredients with which he had to work. But he said nothing to the man. Grand Marshal and knight ate in silence; Hux’s mind on Ren, Valance’s on Hux.


	3. Light Years Away From You

Over the course of the next few cycles--days, Hux corrected himself, more than once--he grew more comfortable with meditation, with Valance’s training him in the use of his newly acquired powers. Even old Sheev had a few handy instructions, when it suited him or amused him.

One day after he’d been practicing control, he even asked Palpatine why he bothered offering advice to him.

“Because if I succeed and you do not, I want a body used to wielding the Force. It makes my appropriation,” he hissed the word, “much easier.”

Hux nodded coolly. When he opened his eyes, he placed Valance carefully back on the floor.

“Very good,” the knight said. “You almost dropped me at first, but your control is improving greatly, Armitage.” Valance smiled at him, almost adoringly.

Once again, Hux wished Asher would hurry back to them. He was progressively more uncomfortable with the man. He didn’t honestly think Valance would overpower him, but he’d begun practicing with his hidden blades again. Just in case.

Another day, Hux sat outside in his tank top beside Ren’s body. He focused on it until the forest, the house, the sounds of creatures slipped away. He found himself skipping past the emperor’s outstretched claws and flowing toward something far away.

It looked like a galaxy being born. Colors he had never seen before captured his gaze; the intricate, strange constellations beckoned him. He felt a chill, and then warmth bathed him. He was mesmerized and drew closer to it.

There was something here he wanted. Or there would be something he wanted, someday, if he could only go and await it.

No, there was the sense of something, someone familiar there. He cold nearly taste the salt of Ren’s skin, feel his presence, hear him in the midst of all this newness.

“Ren,” he called.

And an echoed, faint, “Hux?” answered back.

Hux reached a hand out.

“No!” a voice screamed, and the galaxy disappeared, and he fell and fell until he landed in a heap at Sheev’s feet.

“Foolish boy, stupid boy! As useless as your father said!” the old man yelled.

He’d never seen old Sheev so furious. He spat at his feet and said, “Fuck you, fuck my father. You’re both dead. Don’t mention him again.”

Palpatine snarled. “You very nearly lost yourself, young Hux. You would have left your body to me and never found Ren.”

Hux studied the old man. “No, I think I was finding Ren. I heard him call to me. But you--you can’t take my body just yet, can you? You don’t have the strength.”

“No,” Palpatine admitted. “I do not, if I’m honest. But you don’t know what you were seeing, boy. Get too close to oblivion, and you’ll be lost in it forever.”

Hux shrugged. He was in no mood for Palpatine’s anger, so he pulled himself from his meditation. As he came to, he felt something wet on his cheeks. Tears? He unfolded himself from the ground, his joints stiff, and leaned over Ren’s casket. He rested his forehead against the transparisteel window, watching Ren’s still face in closeup. His features blurred together as Hux’s gaze unfocused.

“I did hear you. I did, didn’t I?” he whispered. “Are you out there waiting for me, Ren? Do you know I’m looking for you?”

Of course, he expected no answer.

“Armitage?”

Hux started, hope clutching his heart, only to groan in despair when he realized it was only Valance who called to him.

“Armitage? Come eat. You’ve been out here all afternoon. It’s getting dark.”

Valance held out a hand, his own hope distilled in his tone. Hux turned from him, his face twitching in annoyance. At Valance’s simpering infatuation. With Valance’s inability to be Ren. With the full lack of Ren starving and shriveling his heart back to the size it used to be--single-celled and cold, hard for its own protection. He tapped the window above Ren’s still features. Where once there had been unconstrained emotion, there was now nothing.

“Goodnight, beloved,” he whispered.

  


**

  


He ate in silence in a corner away from the sulking Valance. He cleaned his bowl and spoon himself and read afterwards, without a word to the other man. When the two readied for bed, Hux crawled into the embrace of the tree and turned his back to the knight. He heard Valance sigh and settle onto his pallet on the floor.

After awhile, he heard the even breathing and light snores of Valance’s slumber.

Agitated and lonely, Hux rose from his own bed and wrapped the ratty blanket around his shoulders. Quietly, he walked past his protector, his apparently erstwhile suitor, and slipped out the door. He made his way to the side of the house and stood over Ren, willing his eyes to open, his plush red lips to say his name.

Of course, Ren said nothing, and Hux curled up beside his casket, into the smallest ball a man of his height could--he was adept at this--and cried himself to sleep.

And that is where Valance found him the next morning, stiff, cold, tear tracks dried on his cheeks.

He was strangely furious as he hauled Hux up by his arms and dragged him back to the house. He shoved him on the bed and bundled Hux in his own body-warmed blanket. As Hux sat chattering his teeth, Valance dragged out the tub they’d found earlier in the week; he filled it with water from the nearby river. He ordered Hux not to move whilst he was gone fetching buckets of water, and Hux obeyed. Whether from sheer exhaustion or because he had never seen the knight so angry, he didn’t know, but he preferred not to test his luck either way.

When Valance made his last trip, poured the final bucket into the old tub, he used to Force to heat the water.

As the stream curled around the single room of the little cabin, he turned to Hux.

“Strip. Now. Get in the tub.”

Hux stared at him blankly.

“You understand, Hux? Come on.”

When Hux didn’t move, seemed unable to comprehend, Valance yanked him roughly to his feet and threw the blankets to the floor. He grabbed at Hux’s jacket and began yanking the buttons open. He was halfway down Hux’s front, when Hux finally shook himself awake. With a yell, he fisted his hand and connected it harshly with Valance’s cheek.

“How dare you?” he hissed.

Valance raised a hand to his injured cheek, his face dark. “You little shit,” he said. He made to grab at Hux, but Hux curled into himself on the bed, eyes wide in horror as Valance approached him.

“Do not touch me,” Hux ordered.

“Fool, I am trying to help you. You’re frozen stiff.”

“I can do it myself. Get out, Valance.”

“This is absurd, Armitage! He is dead. Dead and gone. You will never get him back. You don’t have the power. Let it go! Why do you want him,” Valance yelled and grabbed Hux by the arms, shaking him, “when I am right here?”

Valance pushed Hux down on the bed and climbed atop him.

“I’ve done all you wanted, I’ve fed you and cared for you and helped you learn the Force. Don’t I get any thanks at all? Just throw me a karking bone, Armitage,” he said gruffly. His eyes were pained, his grip tight, as he leaned down to take Hux’s lips with his own.

Hux could feel old Sheev cackling with glee.

That did it. Sheev seemed giddy at Valance’s assault. Which meant, Hux assessed quickly, it either amused him, or he planned on using it to his advantage. 

With an angry roar, Hux managed to focus his anger and his agony at losing Ren; he used both to fling Valance off him and across the room into the tub.

Valance yelled as he went under the water. He coughed as he came back up. Hux used the Force to dunk him again.

“Oh,” he felt Sheev say, “you could kill him, young Hux, so easily. You could become quite the Sith Lord with all this anger and passion.”

Hux released Valance.

He wasn’t a good man, not by any stretch of the imagination, but he would never be as vile as Sheev or Snoke or his own father.

As Valance pulled himself hacking and choking from the tub, Hux swept out of his reach and out the door.

“Armitage,” he begged. “Come back. I’m sorry! Hux!”

Hux connected the land transport to Ren’s casket and, pulling his jacket tightly around him, he got into the pilot seat and took his precious cargo far from some jealous fool who could hurt him. If Valance destroyed Ren’s body, and Hux could never retrieve him, he knew he’d kill Valance.

Honestly, he thought, I’m showing that fool mercy.

  


**

  


Hux realized that, without some guidance, he’d no clue where to go. He’d no clue what lifeforms lived on Endor, what dangers, and Sheev wasn’t forthcoming. In fact, Sheev seemed to have slithered off to some hidden corner of Hux’s mind to sulk.

Much like everyone else in Hux’s life, Sheev had underestimated his mental fortitude. Even emotional fortitude, though Hux knew completely that his perceived emotional control was truly only self-imposed emotional repression.

One can only be smacked around by old men and abandoned by potential maternal figures so many times before one experienced full emotional shut-down.

Now, he sighed and stopped the transport. Valance could probably find him using the Force, if he tried. And Hux could probably find his way back. He turned in his seat to regard Ren’s casket.

No. The longer Valance holed up with only Hux, the more unhinged he would become. Hux wouldn’t risk Ren’s body. Nor would he throw Valance a bone. Even the thought repulsed him. It didn’t matter if Valance was big and burly, could pin him easily to a bed. Hux would only be pretending the knight was Ren. The thought of intimacy with Valance made Hux shudder.

He could never be Ren. No one else could ever be Ren. Therefore, Hux had no interest in anyone else. He might as well swear a vow of celibacy now, he thought. In his heart, the moment Ren had died, he had already done so.

Asher understood, in her way. Ren had told him that though she had never wished to take a lover, she had loved. When she had lost that love, she contented herself with remaining alone, save for the companionship of her brother and sister knights. Hux had hoped for that, but it was not possible with Valance. Why he desired Hux so much, the former grand marshal could not fathom. Perhaps, he always had, but Ren was an obstacle. Hux ground his teeth at the thought. Or perhaps, Valance had been manipulated by Palpatine whilst possessed by the old man. Even now.

Either way, Hux reasoned that removing himself from the unchaperoned presence of Valance was in everyone’s best interest.

Old Sheev had been too delighted at Valance’s assault. That was probably his answer.

Though obviously largely untrained in the Force, he thought he might attempt to triangulate his location. Or something. He wasn’t sure how it worked.

And he preferred not to ask his only current resource.

He sighed and looked away from Ren.

“Don’t worry, baby,” he murmured, though he knew Ren couldn’t really hear him. Though, if he had heard Ren yesterday, perhaps Ren could hear him too? If that were the case, Hux planned to talk to Ren as much as he could, until he perished or was locked away.

So, he said more loudly, “I’ll protect this body and I’ll find you, Ren. I promise. To the very ends of the universe.”

He looked up.

A small spiral loomed far above, almost like a galaxy. Stars seemed to flee before it. Strange, he didn’t remember that up there. It was surely so many light-years away, it was probably dead by now. But no constellations or nebulae came to mind.

The intensity of its colors bloomed orange and purple above his head, vibrant, insistent, before it dimmed again.

“Ren--”

Like a pulse, it shone again.

Hux had spent so much time crying; yet more tears came, at odd moments, to his typically stoic mortification. Like right now.

In his heart, he felt as though Ren were trying to communicate with him, absurd as it might seem.

The encroaching darkness cooled his skin. He looked back to Ren’s body. Closing his eyes, he attempted to reach out with the Force. He stretched his hand before him to help himself focus. He heard the sounds of dusk, of the approaching darkness. Bugs, small mammals, night avians. Slithering of reptiles.

A waddling, shuffling sound. Like feet. Like a biped. His hackles rose, until he realized it couldn’t be Valance.

Something unseen tugged at his senses. He waited for old Sheev to say something, but the old man remained strangely, petulantly silent.

Slowly, cautiously, Hux turned the land transport in the direction of where he thought he sensed the creatures. He wasn’t certain as to the wisdom of his decision, but he couldn’t wander around the forest indefinitely.

And so, he followed the Force; laughing to himself that now he acted like Ren, he followed where it pushed him, almost as if it left him very little choice.

“Well, my love, let us see if I can find some help until Asher returns to us,” Hux told Ren amiably. If Ren were part of the Force now but could hear him, Hux certainly wanted Ren to know that he was trying. For Ren.

He piloted the transport for perhaps an hour more, occasionally stopping to assure himself of his direction. He had not gone off course thus far--through what cause he couldn’t say, except probably the Force. Now that he was using the Force, he was amazed by the intricacies of its possibilities. He had no choice but to admit aloud to Ren that, yes, indeed, the Force seemed to be leading him.

A little longer, and he saw something through the trees.

More accurately, in the trees.

He came to an area where the trees were less dense, stopped the transport, and looked up.

Long bridges connected one tree to another all along the area, with little houses and overlooks built into and around trees. He could see small, furry, hooded creatures walking around.

His eyes widened when a white creature in a pink hood approached and said, “Who are you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long to get this chapter done! I was busy getting married, celebrating birthdays, etc!
> 
> The Ewoks have finally shown up. Yay! What the world needs is... More Ewoks!
> 
> Also, the title of the story and first two chapters are Goldfrapp lyrics, and the title of the third chapter is from The National.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	4. Something Keeps Me Locked and Bodied

Hux laughed to himself as Palpatine grumbled inside their shared metaphysical space. When the old creature had finally stirred from his petulant fit, he was infuriated by the realization that Hux had found himself bundled into the short, furry arms of a loathed enemy.

When the chieftain of Bright Tree Village had approached Hux, Palpatine stewed in his fury as he vaguely recalled how such animals had helped destroy his second Death Star. For his part, Hux had stared at Chief Kneesaa in shock. He knew some tales, but he couldn’t believe that such a primitive, diminutive people had any part in toppling the Empire.

Ren had met them. Hux had laughed in disbelief, had wanted to hear all of Ren’s tales, but Ren never wanted to talk about his past, of course.

And now, here was part of Ren’s past, Ben Solo’s past, welcoming Hux, child of the dissolved Empire, into their homes.

That night he’d found the village, he thought Kneesaa would gut him then and there with her spear. He’d raised his hands in a submissive gesture as he realized who confronted him.

Instead, she had nodded shortly and told him, in her halting Basic, “Teebo told me to expect someone big.”

When he stood, her eyes had widened.

“Not expecting that big,” she’d said.

And now, another day and night had passed; Hux found himself curled up in a ball in a small hut at the base of Kneesaa’s tree, curled up in many small blankets for as much warmth as he could muster. And close to Ren. Small fingers petted his bright, sleep-messed hair; someone giggled beside him.

He opened an eye. He was surrounded again by various woklings as they petted his hair and examined his clothes.

“Pretty!” the girl wokling petting him said.

Stars, he thought, these children were so cute! He never thought anything was cute besides his dearly departed cat--and sometimes Ren.

He shifted, and the woklings all jumped away with startled shrieks.

“Sorry, sorry,” he told them. Kriff, his back was stiff. For all their kindness, his bed was worse here than at the hut. But he felt Ren was far safer here, with the old friends of his mother and father and uncle.

Teebo entered the hut as Hux pulled his legs under himself. There was precious little room in the hut for human-sized creatures.

“Morning,” Teebo said with a nod of his skull-covered head. He shooed out the woklings.

Hux nodded in response. Teebo’s height and breadth--and skull-topped hood--unnerved Hux. Though he had the height advantage, Hux had no doubt the Ewok warrior could take him easily in a fight.

Teebo sat down beside Hux and nodded affably again. A moment later, Kneesaa appeared with two others, her--what? Husband? mate?--Wicket and a slightly older Ewok with a staff.

Wicket placed a basket in the middle of the floor and opened it. He brought out some bowls and a waterskin and some food.

“Eat,” he said.

“Thank you--”

Kneesaa leaned back against the wall of the hut and began breaking her own fast. Through her fruit-full mouth, she addressed Hux.

“This,” she indicated the new Ewok, “is Paploo. He is our shaman. He will help you.”

“Uh--” Hux began, uncommonly at a loss for words. He considered the Ewok beside Teebo, a brown-furred fellow with some strange feathered pendant on his chest.

Paploo said something in their strange tongue.

Wicket answered back and then turned to Hux. His Basic was by far the best, it seemed. Hux had directed most of his questions and answers to him yesterday.

“Paploo says that he is not strong enough to help you. He thinks maybe he and Teebo can figure out something together. Teebo’s magic is strong.”

“With all due respect, ah, Mr. Warrick,” Hux began, and the Ewoks all began to titter, except for Paploo. After a few words from Teebo, he too laughed. Hux was at a loss.

“That is a...a name we do not use. Just call me Wicket. Mister is a funny word. What does it mean?”

“Well, Wicket,” Hux corrected himself. He felt his face burn, though he knew they meant no insult. “I’m not even sure what I need to do.”

“We can protect you from this Valance,” he replied.

“He is very strong in the Force. Magic…” Hux trailed off, filled with uncertainty. He’d no wish to endanger these people. With little provocation, they’d taken him into their village, offered protection, fed him. He didn’t know that strangers could be so welcoming. He had never seen such kindness. He recalled Ren’s story of how the Empire had disrupted their lives, their little moon, their ecology. Yet, here they were, willing to help him.

Teebo nudged him. “This is normal, when we do not have to fight others. We may not have your machines, but we are not--” he paused and said something to Wicket.

“Barbarians,” Wicket supplied.

“Yes, that.”

Hux studied his hands, ashamed. Teebo had read him so easily. That alone embarrassed him, but not nearly so much as his patronizing thoughts.

Kneesaa shrugged. “Humans often judge others badly. The ones we’ve met. It is not a thing we cannot fix.”

“Thank you,” Hux murmured. “My apologies.”

Paploo waved a hand and said something.

Wicket translated. “Paploo says we are not here to correct your imperial stupidity. We are here to help you.”

Hux huffed out a laugh. He relaxed a bit before speaking again. “Valance will probably come for me at some point. Unless the other knight kills him, which I doubt.”

“This other, you trust?” Kneesaa asked.

Hux considered. He’d not said so aloud, leaving room for his own perpetual doubting. “Yes,” he replied eventually. “She is trying to find how to help me”

“Yes, the dark inside,” Kneesaa said.

“Indeed.”

“Tell us of this,” she said, and it was strangely regal, as if she had absolute confidence to rectify this problem.

Hux was uncertain how much they could actually help him. Part of him wanted to await Asher’s return, but he also doubted whether she truly found something. The only thing he didn’t doubt was the strength of his desire to be with Ren.

And, after all, this was all about Ren.

For Ren, he would divest himself of all his needless humanity, shed his human skin, become something else entirely, if it meant he could find Ren. He knew without doubt that Ren was out there, somewhere, waiting for him.

He felt a tear slide down his nose.

A chitter caused everyone to turn toward the door.

Wicket replied sternly in their tongue.

A wokling, ignoring Wicket’s protestations, entered and planted herself firmly in Hux’s lap. She reached up to pet his hair and newly-growing beard.

Wicket grumbled, but Kneesaa only chuckled as she patted her husband’s arm.

“The woklings like your hair. They’ve never seen such a color. Even I am rare, but they see me every day.”

Hux smiled weakly at the little one, and she wiped at his tears chirping at him.

“She’s sorry you are sad,” Teebo said.

Somehow, a child trying to comfort him was more than he could abide. He couldn’t bear thinking of all he used to do to children her age. Had he succeeded, he doubted he’d feel this weight on his conscience. But it had all failed; he had lost Ren. He’d become a monster for nothing.

He should have died--not Ren.

He felt a stirring inside. He knew it was Old Sheev. He could feel the emperor thrumming with pleasure at Hux’s sorrow, at his self-doubt.

Paploo and Teebo tensed.

Kneesaa noticed and told the wokling to leave. Despite the little one’s protests, she obeyed her chief.

“They feel it,” Wicket said, indicating Paploo and Teebo.

Hux sighed. “I allowed the emperor to possess me because he told me--” Hux pinched the bridge of his nose, praying to things in which he didn’t believe that he had not been a gullible fool. “He told me I could get back the one I love.”

“The man outside?” Wicket asked, and Hux nodded.

“Who is he?”

“The son of Leia Organa and Han Solo.”

Wicket gasped. Kneesaa took his hand. She had heard this already, but the others had not. The other two Ewoks made disconsolate noises in Ewokese.

“You were willing to bargain with the emperor?” Wicket whispered in shock.

“The ghost of the haunted plain?” Teebo shivered.

“Yes,” Hux answered very softly. “He’s the only person I’ve loved since I was a child. He’s the only one who has loved me back since I was a child.”

Kneesaa regarded him strangely. Carefully, she said, “You have lived a bad life. This we know. But even you have loved and regretted. You know no one else will help you. But we will offer you help.”

“Some monsters are made by others,” Wicket said. “As you were.”

“I’m still responsible though,” Hux said. He felt confused. Were they condemning him or comforting him? He surely deserved the former.

“It is easier for us to help you. We were not hurt by you. But,” Kneesaa said gravely, “if you cannot control the ghost in you, I will make you responsible.” She stood and came to him, took his face in her soft, white-furred hands. “Do you understand? If you love, you must act with love. I will allow no dead old man to harm my people.”

Hux could not meet her eyes, but he nodded.

She patted him on his bright head. 

“Good boy,” she said. She turned from him and clapped. “Now! Teebo and Paploo will help you.”

How they could help, Hux had no clue, but he spent the rest of the day in the hut with the two Ewoks, with Wicket to translate when the others couldn’t communicate with him.

He told them what he had done, quietly and ashamed, and how he loved Ren, how Ren died. How he and the emperor shared his being now. Then they examined Ren. He would not allow them to open Ren’s cryochamber, but they sat and studied his body for what seemed like hours. Then they thanked him and went back to their treehouses.

Some woklings brought Hux dinner, sat and watched him eat. They took turns petting his hair and beard and exclaiming happily about his coloring, it seemed. The girl wokling who had sat on his lap watched him intently as he wolfed down his dinner.

His food since the dissolution of the First Order had been far better than anything he’d eaten on the Finalizer, unless Ren cooked.

He smiled at the wokling, and her eyes grew large.

When he was finished, the woklings took his bowl and returned to their parents in the trees.

With little else to do, he reclined in his hut, enjoying the silence. It had only been a little over a week since he’d been joined by Palpatine, but it felt like an eternity. This reprieve lulled him, perhaps falsely, but he’d take it for now.

He had help.

He fell asleep and only stirred when he felt a furry head tuck under his chin. He thought it was Millicent for a moment, before he fell asleep, clinging to the warmth.

  
  


**

  
  


In the morning, a great ruckus arose outside his hut.

Hux sat up with a squawk, and something tumbled to the ground beside him.

He looked down.

The wokling rubbed her eyes and said, “Morning, pretty.”

He blinked, patted her on the head distractedly as Kneesaa entered the hut.

“Your knights are here. Which one do we hurt?”


	5. Don't Want to Watch the World We Made Break

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please mind the tags, as this chapter contains non-con tragic corpse fucking. I can’t write long without getting graphic, sorry. Also, I have a boner for Sad Hux. Also, I really just needed Hux and Ewoks.

Hux crawled from the hut after Kneesaa and the wokling. He dusted himself off before following her to the clearing in the midst of the trees. There, surrounded by Teebo and his warriors, Asher and Valance waited. Both wore their masks, but the Ewoks weren’t intimidated. Of course not. Why should they be when they had bested Imperial troopers and advanced weaponry?

“Sir,” Asher said with a nod of her head.

“I’m safe. Please, take off your masks,” Hux told them.

She obeyed. When Valance hesitated, she gestured sharply to him. Slowly, he bared his face. Around one dark eye was a vicious bruise. Well, now Hux could safely assume Asher was the dominant knight, and Hux was relieved. He’d suspected so, but none of the knights ever exerted authority over each other in front of outsiders.

He wasn’t an outsider now.

Kneesaa approached Asher and spoke to her in Ewokese.

Asher’s gaze flickered down to the chief and then back to Hux. He’d never noticed, the few times now he’d seen her face, that her eyes had nictitating membranes. How many other of Ren’s knights were aliens hiding within the Order? It almost hurt that Ren kept it from him. But he could understand, he could, really.

“He should have known he could trust you,” Palpatine whispered. And so quickly, Hux’s serenity was gone.

He ignored Palpatine. “They are friends, Asher. They wish to help. They knew Ren’s...family.”

Her jaws clenched.

“Very well,” she said and then spoke to Kneesaa in Ewokese. The little chief nodded her white head and took Asher’s hand.

Valance made to follow, but Teebo prodded him gently, authoritatively, with his spear. Valance growled, but Asher turned and hissed at him. His shorn head drooped.

Vaguely, Hux wondered if all the knights but Ren had been bald. As Asher approached with Kneesaa, Hux studied her. She looked vaguely like old holos of Asajj Ventress but perhaps taller and more muscular.

Hux felt something around his leg. He looked down and saw the wokling clinging to him, her eyes wide and fearful. He bent to scoop her up; she clung to his neck.

“She’s a friend. She just looks scary,” he told her.

Asher’s eyes widened in surprise. Behind her, he could see Valance quivering with energy, with barely contained frustration at the Ewoks’ spears, with desire as his black eyes stared intently at Hux.

He looked pointedly away from the other man with a frown.

“Asher.”

“Sir, I am relieved to see you unharmed.”

“None the worse for wear.”

“I have punished Valance.”

“I see.”

“I’ll not leave you alone again with him, sir. I promise.”

“I know. I trust you, Asher.”

Palpatine hissed in his head.

“The little one fears you, Asher,” Hux chuckled.

“Children do not favor me, sir.”

“But,” he told the wokling, “you see, she’s very nice. She’s my friend. She won’t hurt you, little one.”

“She’s scary, pretty.”

Asher blanched.

Some small wokling on a backwater moon called the Starkiller himself pretty! And Asher watched in shock as he cooed at the child and nuzzled her furry head.

What had Ren done to the man?

Palpatine snickered. “The big brute wants you more now. Wants to breed with you. Too bad for him that I’ll soon have you, boy.”

“Shut up,” Hux told Old Sheev in his head.

A dull ache settling behind his eyes was Palpatine’s only response.

“What have you found?” he asked instead, wincing imperceptibly. The wokling began to pet his hair again.

“I’ve found a little that might help, sir. But should we discuss it here? Should we not go back to the cabin?”

“No,” Hux said quickly, eyeing Valance.

“Forgive me, sir--”

He waved a dismissive hand. “We are safe here. Teebo’s comrades can watch Valance.”

Hearing his name, Valance stepped forward, only to be stopped by Teebo’s spear. The knight growled, but then jumped in surprise as he was pushed back by a gesture from Paploo, only now entering the clearing.

“They can use the Force?” Asher asked in shock.

“Yes.”

Her lips thinned thoughtfully.

From the circle of spears, Valance called.

“Armitage, please. I can help. Let me help! I can do anything you desire!”

“Shut up, Valance,” Asher growled.

Hux eyed him. He approached slowly and glared down his patrician nose at the other man. 

  
“You assaulted me. You insulted me. You dishonored your master. Do you even know why you behaved in such a manner? Do you even have feelings for me?"

Valance spluttered.

“Have you always been jealous of Ren, or were you just a weak tool used by Palpatine?”

“He was both, sir,” Asher answered behind him.

The Ewoks watched this exchange, held rapt at the drama unfolding. Hux’s little wokling pressed her cheek to his and growled at Valance.

“Yes,” Hux agreed with Asher. “I think you’re right. Palpatine will use his lust against me.” To Valance he said, “You will stay away from me. You can be of no help.”

He turned away and caught Kneesaa watching him curiously.

He cocked his head.

“You are both cruel to him,” she said.

“He assaulted me,” Hux replied.

“Yes, but cruelty will only make him worse. Unless we kill him.”

Hux considered. He wanted Valance nowhere near him, but, perhaps for the safety of everyone here, he could show mercy. It seemed a bit much to adhere to Kneesaa’s casual suggestion of death.

“You can help the villagers,” Hux told Valance. “You may speak to Asher, but stay away from me.”

Valance let out a cry and fell to his knees.

“Palpatine will only use you, fool,” Asher told him.

Kneesaa called to Teebo and Paploo and Wicket.

“I will put the knight to use,” she said to Hux. “You two will talk with Wicket, Teebo, and Paploo.”

“Thank you,” he replied.

He bent to put the wokling down, but she refused. She clung harder to him, so he took her back into the hut, followed by his Force-using planning committee.

  
  


** 

  
  


Hux lay in the dark of the hut, huddled under all his blankets. Asher was guarding the door outside. With little else to do, she had fallen into deep meditation whilst listening to Hux’s wrenching sobs.

How long? Oh, hours ago now it must have been, since Wicket had ushered Teebo and Paploo out of the hut with apologies. Asher had placed a hand on his shoulder, offering awkward comfort, but he had sent her away; so doing, he had curled into a tight ball once again and wept. It seemed like an eternity. Palpatine tried to mock him, but Hux viciously flung him to a darkened corner of himself, wailing so loudly that surely all the Ewoks must think him mad.

Perhaps he was.

The sobbing abated now and then briefly, leaving him hiccupping and teary-eyed, but then he would feel a deep pain in his heart, his diaphragm would spasm, and he’d be off once again.

He had no voice left. He would have no eyes at the end, surely.

Valance approached the hut.

“Let me go to him,” he pleaded.

Asher came slowly from her trance but he didn’t attempt to sneak past her. He waited patiently.

“Touch him, and I shall butcher you slowly, brother,” she replied.

He slumped away.

She returned to her meditation.

There was no other way, no matter how she tried to find one.

And so, she listened to her bereft new master sob himself to sleep, though the weeping continued even after he lost consciousness.

  
  


**

  
  


The upshot of all that his Force-users had learned was this:

In order to find Ren, who seemed lost in the Force--or, rather, fully immersed in, conjoined with it, Hux would need to part with Ren’s body.

The whole reason for this venture was to rejoin Ren to his body, so he could live. But Ren was neither Force ghost nor capable as some Sith, like Sheev, of possessing a body. He’d never learned, and his essence was too far gone.

Or something. Hux didn’t fully understand the Force nonsense. What he understood was this: Ren was not coming back. Not here. Not now. Hux could seek him out in the Force, but Paploo gently told him,

“If you wish to find him, you too will need to go beyond the physical. This now? It’s done.”

Paploo was sorry to say it, Hux knew, and he knew the truth. But he wasn’t ready to face it yet. Wasn’t ready to say goodbye. Was certainly not ready to trust everything to the wiles and whims of the Force, which had never done anything but hurt Ren.

No. Right now, Hux thought the Force was a spiteful bitch who arbitrarily lashed out at some people under the auspices of finding balance. Like a vindictive, jealous god.

The Force had laughable ways of finding balance. There was no logic, no reason. And yet he would have to trust to the vagaries of the Force itself to find whatever substance of Ren he might.

He would never see Ren again, would he?

And thus his mind went all night long, waking him at intervals to set him crying again.

Sometime in the middle of the night, when the moon was high, Asher came to with a start.

Hux stood beside her, unaware of her presence. He was naked, save for a blanket wrapped around his shoulders.

His skin shone white in the moonlight, his hair delicately messy. His eyes were bright with tears, his lips half opened, as if beseeching. His cock lay flaccid in its nest of soft red curls.

“SIr?” she asked. She reached out to touch his calf, and she sensed no control from the emperor. From Sheev, she sensed nothing. Then Hux’s leg moved from her grasp, and he was walking steadily towards the cryochamber.

Asher stood up and followed him.

“Sir?” she called again.

He ignored her or didn’t hear her.

He ducked quickly under the shelter the Ewoks had erected over Ren to protect him, and stood staring down at Ren’s face. Hux looked so young and lost. His bushy brows slanted mournfully toward his hair, and his mouth opened and closed impotently. He placed a white hand delicately against the window of the chamber.

“Sir, you should sleep,” Asher said. She had only moved less than half the distance. She could not bring herself to trespass on this moment, for some reason.

No response from Hux.

She watched in confusion as he leaned down to kiss the window. She could not hear what he murmured, but what she saw next made her turn away in horror, but also unutterable sorrow. It made her sit by the hut door and make sure, from afar, no one disrupted Hux’s privacy.

As for Hux, he barely remembered walking the distance, short as it was, from his hut to Ren. He became aware of hard synthetic material beneath his lips. He only began to see Ren’s face coalesced beneath his own mouth that breathed heavily onto the transparisteel.

“Ren, Ren,” his voice quietly broke as he spoke. “I failed. I can’t bring you back. I’m so sorry. Even if I can find you, there’s nothing to come back to. I don’t know how to do any of this, Ren.”

He stroked the glass.

“I miss you.”

“I want you here with me.”

“I want to touch you.”   
  


Tears fell freely from his eyes, blurring Ren again. Desperately, since now there was no point, he opened the cryochamber, exposing Ren’s body. He sobbed again. This seemed so final.

He struggled to haul Ren’s body into his arms, wept into his hair. Stroked his face and covered it with tears. Kissed the hint of the remains of the scar from Starkiller Base, the nose, the eyelids. Each mole lovingly accounted for.

Then he kissed Ren’s cold lips.

So soft, even now. He gently opened Ren’s mouth and kissed him again, searching with his tongue, memorizing every tooth, every rise of the alveolar ridges, the taste. He moaned into the kiss.

“What in all Sith hells are you doing?” he vaguely heard Old Sheev ask, but he ignored him.

He took himself in hand and stroked until he was beginning to grow hard.

“Ren, oh, Ren--” he whimpered. “I cannot bear any life without you. I need you--”

He climbed into the cryochamber and wrestled with Ren’s clothing.

“Kriff--” Palpatine muttered.

“Shut up shut up shut up,” Hux hissed at him.

He stroked Ren’s bare legs, his softly muscular abdomen, the lush plains of his chest. He licked a nipple, by which to recall the taste, the feel. Despite the lack of response from Ren’s corpse, Hux found himself hard and grinding against Ren’s cock. Hux’s filled quickly. He lay along Ren’s body, shivering and grinding against it and knew he was, in this moment, mad.

This was the last fuck with Ren, his last touch of Ren. He needed all he could get.

“I’m sorry, baby, I’m so sorry, but I need to remember this,” he purred, and began rambling lovingly in Ren’s dead ear. After awhile, Hux pulled himself off Ren and adjusted his body’s legs. He spat on his own hand and slicked himself as best he could. And then, as softly as possible, he entered Ren. He moved gently, caressing Ren’s body and murmuring love to his beloved, and then he picked up the pace. He arched his back and flung his head up as he wept, unable to see the stars, and then he came, hard, inside Ren for the last time.

Humiliated and sorrowful, he collapsed on Ren’s body and wept. He didn’t know how long.

When he’d clothed Ren and kissed him and closed the cryochamber again, his seed inside Ren for eternity, he staggered silently back to the hut. He passed Asher without a word, and she didn’t acknowledge that she’d noticed anything out of the ordinary.

Once Hux had sobbed himself to sleep, Asher released her breath. She sat staring at her trembling hands for a moment. And then even the stolid Asher quietly wept.

  
  


**

  
  


In the morning, no one was the wiser. If they were, they kept their own counsel. 

Hux’s little wokling came as soon as he left his hut and clung to him the whole day.

The Ewoks gave a somber ceremony in honor of Ren. They washed his hair carefully, and then they buried his corpse in a simple shroud. Asher observed the mad grin Hux had as Teebo and another Ewok lowered Ren into the ground. Only she knew his secret, and she wouldn’t even tell him she did.

Once Ren was interred, Paploo and Wicket approached. Wicket translated.

“Now, with Knight Asher’s help, we will place the darkness in the tree. Because it is part of you now, a piece of your soul will also go into the tree.”

They bade Hux to sit down.

“Normally, these are planted for us, the living, our ancestors. But we have combined this spell with a Sith spell your knight found. This will tie you to the tree, tie you to the dark entity’s magic, and allow you to draw on both its magic and the tree for power and life. As long as you do no harm, your tree should remain healthy.”

Hux nodded.

Asher pulled his head back into her lap. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Valance, red-eyed, turning away.

“Are you ready?” she asked.

“You saw me. You know I am,” he told her bluntly.

She flushed.

The wokling clutched his hand, and he smiled at her.

“See you soon,” he told her.

Paploo and Teebo sat on either side of Asher. 

“What are you doing, boy?” Old Sheev shrieked.

In their place of meeting, he turned to Old Sheev.

“I’m controlling you. You won’t have my body, but I”ll have some of your power. Don’t ask me how this works. They figured it out.” Hux shrugged, but he also smiled viciously.

“You are mad. I knew it last night,” Palpatine sneered.

“I am, or I wouldn’t have been in this situation in the first place.”

Palpatine hissed in pain suddenly.

Hux watched, half aware, as Asher chanted a Sith counterpoint to Teebo and Paploo’s Ewokese. He felt his body stiffen. His eyes rolled to Ren’s grave, where Kneesaa, as chief, was planting a soul tree seed with great ceremony. She shook water droplets over it from a large leaf of some sort.

The chanting continued. His teeth clenched painfully. His little wokling sobbed, but when he tried to comfort her, she only wailed.

In his mind, he felt Palpatine pulling away, bit by bit, and the old man screamed in his head. Or from his mouth. Or both.

And then, there was only a whisper of himself, before everything went dark.

.


	6. Death is the Road to Awe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I plowed through this chapter in two hours. I was feeling the angst. I love Hux angst. It’s a problem.
> 
> Just a head’s up, there is disordered eating for Hux in this chapter, though it’s more just a byproduct of his search for Ren. Still, there are a couple mild descriptions of his underweight body, and he doesn’t really care that he’s emaciated.
> 
> Also thank you so much for reading to the end! Here is the happy ending, as promised!

Asher knelt beside Keelah. She bore a small basket of food and water for the little wokling. 

“Your mother wishes me to bid you go home,” Asher told her gently in Ewokese.

Keelah shook her brown head. “I will stay with Pretty a little longer,” she replied.

She stroked his hair, longer now than it had ever been before, but Hux wasn’t aware enough to care that it was no longer in its regulation cut.

After a month, he had taken residence in a bier built by Valance and Wicket. He lay, in gentle repose, almost as if he were asleep. Or dead. Asher and some of the Ewoks took turns moving him, bathing him, and sometimes reviving him enough to eat, just a bit; but he was always so agitated to be pulled from his meditation. He was afraid that he would just miss Ren if he stopped for even a moment. As if Ren were just one more moment away from him.

It was strange, Hux found himself thinking sometimes: how a man like he was, always in motion, planning, doing, scheming, had now become a creature of perpetual immobility. His mind searched the farthest reaches of the Force, but his body almost never moved. He remained, tended by Asher and Keelah and sometimes other Ewoks, almost like he was some strange god. Or a Hutt, he supposed.

He rarely felt Old Sheev. The old man was rendered impotent, trapped inside a tree, granted, Hux was attached to the tree too, communed with it as he meditated through the Force. Sometimes, Old Sheev would reach out to him, but he knew that Hux had shut him out. He would never take Hux’s body, because he’d been forced into a tree. Yes, he was bitter, but his bite came from a toothless maw. Hux controlled their power, and all he did was meditate, seeking Ren.

Occasionally, he ate or moved to prevent sores. But even after such a short time, he was needing less sustenance than before. Not that he’d ever required much in the first place. Unfailingly, Keelah or Asher would be beside him when he came back to this corporeal form. He thought ruefully about how the little wokling was so earnestly devoted to him, how she called him Pretty. Had Ren survived, perhaps they could have had themselves a child like her. Though they’d known each other only briefly, he also found himself very fond of her, though he felt remorse for how little they really interacted, for how Ren never got to see her.

Once, during a lengthy meditation, Hux almost felt himself getting lost, somewhere, out there. He didn’t know where to look, what to seek, and suddenly felt a tugging upon his spirit.

He followed the pull, hoping, doubting.

He found himself somewhere warm and earthy. Brown, above, below, on all sides, rings and whorls slipping all around him on the ceiling, walls, floor. He realized he was inside the heart of a tree. His tree. 

Palpatine glowered at him from a corner.

“I know where Kylo Ren is,” he said earnestly.

Hux’s excitement appeared, grew, despite himself.

“Where? he begged. 

“In ruddy Sith hell, boy, where he will rot forever,” Palpatine cackled.

This time, Hux lashed out at him, and Palpatine folded into himself with a shriek.

“You are trapped here, with me. You probably shouldn’t antagonize me, old man.”

“Fuck you.”

Hux blinked. He’d never heard Old Sheev say that.

He left Palpatine to his misery.

Slowly, he began to return to his body as he felt himself being called.

“Pretty, Pretty, it’s time to eat.”

His eyes opened slowly. The light hurt. He squinted, pained, eyes tight.

“Hello, there, Pretty,” Keelah said softly. She stroked his hair. He opened his eyes fully when she pulled the tarp farther over his head.

“Hello, little one,” he croaked. HIs throat was dry, a veritable desert. His body felt as parched as Jakku, he thought with a sardonic smile to himself. He peered at her. “Not so little now, though. I’m sorry I missed your hooding ceremony.”

She shrugged. “We had it here, beside you, so you were sort of here.”

“It suits you. I like it,” he said. He weakly reached out a thin arm--thinner than before--and tweaked the orangey hood atop her head. 

“It was the closest we could get to this,” she replied and tugged his hair gently.

He smiled at her. It almost hurt her to see that smile. He looked so small and even more delicate. He realized he hadn’t really been aware of passing life for a few years. He’d thought that he’d only rested atop the bier for a few months--not years. Tears stung his eyes as he patted her head. She took his hand.

“Choose life or choose love. Either one is a good choice. I chose too, and I’ll watch over you.”

“You should go live.”

“I am. You should see your tree,” she said. She called behind her and Asher appeared, looking tanned and older, and dressed more like she belonged here. She knelt by Keelah, and the two maneuvered him into a sitting position.

“See, sir?” Asher asked. 

His tree--his and Ren’s--was much taller than her remembered. His eyes widened as he looked up at it looming above him. It looked big and strong, like Ren, with ebony bark, strangely smooth to the touch. Its leaves were five-fingered and delicate, smaller than the hollow of his palm. Nestled between each cluster was a small orange-gold flower. Keelah motioned to Asher, and the knight stood to pluck a flower. She handed it to Hux.

He stared down at the flower.

“We’ve never seen a Soul Tree that looked like this. It’s like your child,” Keelah said.

Unbidden, tears sprang to his eyes. He leaned forward, the knobs of his spine painfully apparent. Asher moved to support his unsteady body. Gently now, he placed the flower in the stitching of Keelah’s hood.

“Keep this one for me,” he told her.

Her furry hand had stopped the sob from leaving her mouth. Asher went to her immediately, and he didn’t fail to notice the tenderness between the two.

How strange, he thought, how beautiful. How much of their lives had he missed?

And yet, he couldn’t bring himself to regret his choice. Watching them made him that much more certain of his choice.

“How is he?”

Hux turned to the voice, clutching at the sides of his makeshift bed.

Valance.

Hux smiled at him.

“I’m well. Bright Tree Village seems to suit the two of you,” Hux told him.

Valance didn’t bother turning from Hux in shame, hiding his emotion.

“You’ve become so small,” he said huskily.

Hux’s bony shoulders rose in a shrug. He said, “Presumably, I’ll grow smaller still.”

He didn’t mind, for once, his slimness. He didn’t want to starve himself, didn’t intend to. But finding Ren was more important. Everyone made sure he ate, but eventually, he would have to rescind this corporeal form and let himself loose in the Force.

He wasn’t ready yet. He needed to be certain he found Ren.

He was also, just a bit, afraid.

What if the Force tore his disparate parts from one another? Would he be able to find himself and Ren? Would he even remember? Or would he become something other, not himself?

Then how would he ever find Ren?

He ate, because Keelah made him. As soon as he could, he resumed his meditation.

“You’ll die before you find him,” Old Sheev hissed. A cruel smile lit up his cloven face.

“Well, then, old man, so will you.”

That shut him up. He was weaker now too. Hux reasoned, at this rate, Sheev would be drained by the tree as Hux grew more powerful.

This was the only power he had ever needed in life.

This power to find Ren. And when he found him, he would get them home somehow, wherever that was. And he would protect Ren, forever.

He meditated for a long time.

For years, it seemed, he was in and out of consciousness. Sometimes, he was aware of others, sometimes only of food in his stomach, soft hands bathing him.

Sometimes he thought he felt tears on his face. Once or twice, he returned to the world of his continually shrinking body and watched the seasons change his tree--his and Ren’s, their child. He would watch the leaves dance to their deaths in the wind, the black trunk becoming a black skeleton against the vault of a winter sky; then the little pinkish-orange buds, like his nipples, Ren would say, would open into the lovely flowers that mirrored his hair. And the thought of Ren would agonize him, but he had no sexual desire anymore. His only desire was to find Ren, his home. He wept still, but any pleasure he felt was from remembered intimacies from long ago.

Pale, a shadow, a ghost, Sheev whined, “Stop thinking of love. What good has it done you?”

“It kept me from staying a monster,” Hux replied.

There came a day when all Sheev could do was croak at him and wave limply in disgust. Hux took that as victory.

When he awakened, he saw an Ewok that looked familiar. There was an orange-gold flower in the stitching of her hood, but she looked so old.

“Do you remember me, Pretty?” she asked.

It took him a moment. And she lacked something.

Someone.

“Keelah?” he asked, and he was stunned at the sound of his own voice--hoarse, cracked like old pottery ill-used. “You’ve gone old! How must I look?” he laughed weakly.

“Old as Yoda of the Jedi,” she laughed.

“But--where is Asher?”

At this, her face fell. This was how he discovered, at his advanced age, how Ewoks look when they weep, when their own age comes upon them. It broke his heart.

“She died last spring,” Keelah said.

“I’m so sorry.”

“We had a good life. At first, I thanked her for bringing you to me. But now, I must thank you, Pretty. I see now how you must feel.”

He took her hand and started as he saw the arthritic, thin claw his had become.

Footsteps.

“Armitage?”

Valance looked much the same, only some wrinkles around the eyes and deep frown lines showing his age.

“I am sorry about your sister of Ren,” Hux said softly.

Valance nodded. 

“You stayed,” Hux noted. “Why?”

“Because I need to prove I could be better. Because this is how I show my love, in my way,” he said plainly, and shrugged.

Hux’s eyes widened, but the green of them had dimmed with the years.

“It is what it is, Armitage. But I like it here. These people are family now,” Valance said and laid a hand on Keelah’s shoulder.

“I’m glad. I can’t tell you how much--”

Hux’s eyes unfocused. He did not see Keelah and Valance exchange looks. He knew nothing, save that he thought--no, he knew!--he heard a voice. One long sought. Still so familiar despite being decades gone.

“Armitage--”

A whisper in the air. A faint breath only seen because a leaf shivers in its passing.

“Ren,” Hux said aloud, though he didn’t know it.

And he was gone again.

This time, with Palpatine only cobwebs in the corner of his ebbing life, Hux let go. Now, he wasn’t afraid. He had searched so long, that the green of his eyes and the red of his hair had long faded to gray.

His body released him, and the petals of the flowers of his and Ren’s tree scattered in the last breath he released.

How long he floated through the Force he knew not. But eventually, he floated to the galaxy. He had not seen it in so long.

It spiralled in unknown colors over his head as he reached for it. It seemed to suck him into its embrace, and this time Old Sheev could not stop him.

His hand touched it, the arm of the galaxy stretching for him.

He looked behind him.

Bright Tree Village was no more. Endor, Arkanis, all of it gone in a flash of light and dark.

An ending.

And a beginning.

The last thing he knew was an explosion, the colors rioting around him. 

  
  


**

  
  


The newness of the universe itched with desire, with the potential for life. Shards and dust, crystals, growth.

Consciousness? Not yet, not yet.

Or, wait.

A speck in the heart of nothingness reaches out to assert itself. It looks for something. It needs to find. It wants. It has loved.

I am here, it calls out. I am myself.

It pulls others to itself, attempting various combinations, accepting some, rejecting others. Occasionally, it has a fondness for one, but sends it on its way.

It pulls one to it, an obsidian thing with flame in its heart.

Yes.

It wants this.

It doesn’t realize that it has recognized beauty’s existence.

It holds the obsidian close to it, but knows it is not part of itself.

More eons pass.

It has managed to build itself. It is a thing, though useless.

It balks at the word.

Sometimes, the thing that was its heart is recognized, but then they pass each other by, and it feels the first sorrow in the new universe.

On and on, in a cycle of death and rebirth and growth, as we are all made of stars, this things grows and becomes, seeks and finds itself; seeks and seeks the one it lost in a different place, long dead, but that it needs like air and light and sustenance.

Piece by piece, it recognizes love.

  
  


**

  
  


He didn’t believe in reincarnation so much as recycling.

Past lives were nonsense. But perhaps molecular memory was possible. Why he felt as though he were always missing a piece of himself. And even when he felt as though he had a handle on things, he felt a pang for something he knew wasn’t there anymore.

It used to be. Or it felt like it did. But it was gone. It felt like it had been gone since before time began.

Could his dust recall being the stuff of stars? Other times and places?

Sometimes it felt like it.

He was a man of science. Always had been. He made it farther than his father, but that wasn’t even good enough for the old man.

He sighed as he walked into the bookstore, one of the only solaces in his life, besides his cat Millicent.

He was looking at a display of the most popular books in the city, when he heard his name called.

“Armitage!” 

He cringed. His name sounded good on no one’s lips.

He turned toward the table of new releases.

Phasma stood there with some of their friends.

“H’lo,” he said, faking friendliness.

Really, all he wanted was a tea and a sit with a good book.

“Come join us. We’re having book club,” Val said. He seemed eager.

The others nodded.

These were the people toward whom he’d gravitated after university--all strange, all missing things in their own way.

Except Ash and Kay. They were happy, like they’d been reunited after eons apart.

Hux wondered what that was like.

Rey and her orgy waved as they walked by.

“We’re Christmas shopping,” she called. “Don’t find us or no presents!”

Yes, Christmas.

He didn’t feel like Val scrabbling to invite everyone over just to woo Hux. Hux felt bad, but he didn’t want Val.

He knew whom he wanted.

He just hadn’t found him yet.

Someone stepped close to Hux’s shoulder. He stiffened and moved a bit.

“Hey, Phas, is Rey here?”

Phasma answered, but Hux didn’t hear it.

Every molecule of his body thrummed with recognition. He huffed a breath. He felt as though he were about to hyperventilate.

He dreamed that voice sometimes, with its absurd American accent-

“--Rey’s cousin from across the pond,” Phasma was saying.

“Hux?”

“Hux?”

She waved her hand in front of his eyes.

Tears ran down his cheeks.  
  


He turned.

He turned and saw the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen in his life. His heart long missing returned to his body.

Molecular memory existed.

This was whom he sought for centuries, eons, from one universe to the next, across lifetimes. He had visions of a black tree with red flowers.

His head fell into his hands, and he wept.

“Sorry, sorry--I,” he said. He didn’t know what to say.

“I know you,” the voice whispered.

Armitage Hux looked tearfully into the eyes of Ben Solo. Ben Solo touched his face, his own face the very picture of wonder.

“It’s you. I dream about you,” he said in his flat American accent.

“And I you,” Hux said.

He forgot about everyone else. The store, the noise, the Christmas decorations, the holiday cheer. The annoyed man trying to get around them.

All the universe narrowed to a point, at which stood this man.

Hux knew him before they’d even been introduced.

He felt like a very long journey had ended.

He felt home.

He felt like this was all that mattered in life.

“If I may be so bold,” he began.

But Ben interrupted him.

“You’re mine. I’ve looked forever for someone who was mine.”

Hux nodded. “I always have been. I always will be.”

Perhaps, he thought, as he and Ben clung to each other--much to everyone else’s utter confusion--there was something after all to reincarnation.


End file.
